Paul has been serving a spaghetti squash dish as a special at Bella Bistro and some of our staff have really enjoyed it and are cooking spaghetti squash at home. So we have been talking about it at work and I thought I'd share with you how to prepare it. Using spaghetti squash instead of wheat spaghetti is a fun gluten free and lower calorie option. When I cooked the 2 squash pictured below we had enough squash for a few meals. We served it as a side vegetable with the aglio olio one night and the next night with a bolognese sauce. Stev loves it, me not so much but I am happy to eat healthy food, so I would say I liked it and definitely recommend cooking one because it is fun and easy to prepare. It goes without saying that we cooked regular pasta for the kids, they are not interested in gluten free lower calorie options.
I have a little line of frozen meals available at Bella Bistro. I have been making dishes that freeze well in small batches with local naturally raised meats. So you can get some of our Bella Bolognese sauce to go at Bella Bistro. I also have a meat ball dish with artichokes and olives that would be great with the spaghetti squash or pasta.
Stab the spaghetti squash all over with a slim pointy knife 8 times.
Roast the squash at 350 in the oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour. The picture above is from half way.
The spaghetti squash are done when they feel soft.
Let the spaghetti squash cool a bit then cut it in half and scoop out the seeds.
When they are cut in half you can see the strands of spaghetti, I used a fork to loosen and separate them and scoop the the strands of squash out on to a plate. The strands of spaghetti squash at this point are ready to use like spaghetti. They are warm but cool off quickly. If you are using a bolognese type sauce the hot sauce will warm the spaghetti squash back up if it has cooled off. But you can also sauté the strands with a sauce to warm them up. The night we served the spaghetti squash as a side dish we tossed it while it was still warm with aglio olio.
Aglio olio is one of my favourite sauces of all time its a garlic olive oil and chilli sauce.
Aglio Olio
1 clove of garlic finely chopped (1 tablespoon)
1 Thai chilli finely chopped (1/2 teaspoon) if you don't have fresh a chilli then use dried chilli flakes
5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
Put all the ingredients in a pot and cook it on medium high heat. Keep a close eye on the pot. When it starts to simmer let it go for 20 seconds then take the pot off the heat. Its done. If the garlic browns or burns then it will not taste good the garlic should still be a pale colour.
This aglio olio recpie makes enough for 2 to 3 people.
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